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I just ran into this message:

Worship Maestro wrote:I am new to this forum, but have used MOTU audio interfaces for many, many years. I have been very pleased with them, which is why I bought an HD192 about a year ago. The fan was noisy from the beginning, but after a year seems to be getting even worse. It's a drag to purchase their top end piece and have it have such an issue. You buy the best stuff for top end work, but who can do good work with the whine.

Sorry don't have a solution, but I thought I just got a bad piece. Guess not......

and i totally agree. i was kind of sad to see the mesagge was in a topic posted months ago with only 1 response.

how can we try to tell ourselves motu is as good or better than digidesign when we dont talk about this kind of things.

the HD192 is supposed to be the motu equivalent of the digidesign HD and when i bought it as i got it out of the box i was worried. it feels so light, it didnt seem real. and then the noise is really ridiculous. and i keep getting some misterious cliks now and then. i guess its better than my old 1224 (i am not so sure) but the truth is i wish i had the money to get digidesign hardware. we buy motu not because its better or as good, but because its cheaper and the HD192 feels cheaper...
no?

Hi Audioflotis:

I'm not sure if you are looking for advice or not.

There are a number of things to consider when choosing an interface, and there are a number of precautions one can take in advance of buying one.

Audioflotis wrote: how can we try to tell ourselves motu is as good or better than digidesign when we dont talk about this kind of things.

Could it be that asking such a question is a waste of time? I'm not sure that trying to convince ourselves that MOTU's hardware is better or worse than Digidesign's hardware will do much good if the fan is the principle issue at stake. Among the many things that might have been researched prior to purchase was the loudness of the fans on the HD192 by reading the accounts from many owners besides just one or two. That's the easiest way to determine whether or not the fan on your unit is working normally.

There could be good reasons why so few have responded to the message you read. Consider that the loud fan issue may be very rare! It doesn't have to be all bad news.

Audioflotis wrote: the truth is i wish i had the money to get digidesign hardware. we buy motu not because its better or as good, but because its cheaper and the HD192 feels cheaper...
no?

Buying things simply because they are cheaper on the surface is probably not the approach I would take. If the price of a less expensive brand is more important than the perceived quality then it's hard to complain. To some extent , you get what you pay for. I would consider buying a unit that I loved and worked to my satisfaction first and foremost.

But, there are many people who are quite happy with their HD192 units. It seems to me that not all the fans on these units are loud.

Things to do:

1. If paid with a credit card, return the unit. Most credit card companies protect the consumer from defective purchases.

2. Measure the dB level on the fans with an SPL meter from at least three distances (1', 2', 3') and send that info to MOTU to see if they can confirm that the fan noise is louder than it should be.

3. Anything with a fan is a prime candidate for being placed inside an isolation box to baffle the fan noise. There are DIY methods of making such devices seen and not heard. There are whisper fans out there which can probably be swapped for the stock MOTU fan. You could also just send the box back to MOTU for evaluation, repair, or an exchange.

4. Take a moment to evaluate the HD192 for its overall performance beyond the issue of the fan. At that point, the price of a replacement fan may seem small compared to the price of buying the Digidesign equivalent.

My fan started going bad not long ago. I took mine up to a place called Alive Sound in Burbank:

http://www.alivesoundcenter.com/index.html

For somewhere about $100 they will replace the fan with a new, high-quality low-noise fan. I made an appointment to drop mine off when I was in the LA area, then visited a friend, saw a movie, then picked it up. It is now extremely quiet.

ditto on the fan-noise thing....i wired in a switch to turn it off when tracking acoustic stuff in the control room.......i have a feeling that the unit was over-engineered for use in a hot machine-room playing/recording two 10.1 mixes at 192kHz......i can leave the fan off for hours if i'm only tracking at 44.1 or 88.2...with 192 and higher i/o turned on, the heat produced is a lot more noticeable...
Regarding the sound, the conversion sounds just as good, if not better than, the digidesign 192 i/o for WAY less money,

I am sad to say i did some research and the noise thing seems to be normal.
I had to buy it without researching because it was a las minute thing for a big project.
i am a little sad i trusted motu on this one. i had the 1224 for ever and i love it, so i thought the 192 would be the same thing but a lot better. it just feels a little cheap. i guess like frodo says. you kind of get what you pay for.
i still think it sounds great, so i will try the isolating thing.

That place in burbank looks great... to bad i live in mexico!!!!

Audioflotis wrote:That place in burbank looks great... to bad i live in mexico!!!!

You might try emailing them and asking if they will send you a fan maybe?

Hi guys, I own a couple of HD192 too, I have'em right here at my desk beside the mixer, almost in my face, I do can listen the fan working, but is not like a "problem to me" as my studio is mostly a Mix Room, that is not a problem at least for now, the thing that worries me is that I've heard that the clock in these units is not as good as it should be, and in order to have a really good sounding cards I should get a good master clock, such as the OCX and stuff.... that's what has been bugging me lately

This is an old post of mine. I did the work when I was having the BLA mods done. Its not too hard to do and they're still working two years later.

I purchased new "quiet" fans and as soon as I screwed them down the same noise issues were still there. The real problem is MOTU mounts the fans directly to the chassis.
I fixed three HD 192s by removing the fans then cutting squares of 1/2" foam rubber that are big enough to fit the fan into after you cut out the inside of the square. Make the cut slightly smaller than the fan so that it grips the fan well. I used tacky glue to stick the foam to the inside of the HD 192 side panel centering it around the exhaust port. Mount the fan inside the foam square and reconnect. Be careful of the capacitors which make it difficult to remove the lower screws when first taking out the fan. Also, be careful when tightening the XLR screws as the connectors are nylon and the screws will strip it fairly easily.
When you're finished, the fan is only touching the foam and the units are nice and quiet. This mod would work for 1296s as well.
It takes a couple of hours and is well worth it.

mesaken wrote:This is an old post of mine. I did the work when I was having the BLA mods done. Its not too hard to do and they're still working two years later.

I purchased new "quiet" fans and as soon as I screwed them down the same noise issues were still there. The real problem is MOTU mounts the fans directly to the chassis.
I fixed three HD 192s by removing the fans then cutting squares of 1/2" foam rubber that are big enough to fit the fan into after you cut out the inside of the square. Make the cut slightly smaller than the fan so that it grips the fan well. I used tacky glue to stick the foam to the inside of the HD 192 side panel centering it around the exhaust port. Mount the fan inside the foam square and reconnect. Be careful of the capacitors which make it difficult to remove the lower screws when first taking out the fan. Also, be careful when tightening the XLR screws as the connectors are nylon and the screws will strip it fairly easily.
When you're finished, the fan is only touching the foam and the units are nice and quiet. This mod would work for 1296s as well.
It takes a couple of hours and is well worth it.

I've heard of HD192 and 1296 owners installing rubber washers between the fan and the inside of the enclosure to achieve the same kind of isolation and reduction of noise. So that's another option for those less mechanically-inclined people whose interfaces have a fan noise problem due to vibration. Also, it doesn't require gluing anything down, which some might not want to do.

I can tell you that in my particular case, isolation of the fan from the chassis was the least of my worries. My fan litteraly sounded like a grinder sometimes. I got the fan switched out and it's dead silent. I don't know if they used any rubber washers to decouple the fan from the housing or not.

James Steele wrote:I can tell you that in my particular case, isolation of the fan from the chassis was the least of my worries. My fan litteraly sounded like a grinder sometimes. I got the fan switched out and it's dead silent. I don't know if they used any rubber washers to decouple the fan from the housing or not.

What did you switch it out to?
I have 2 Hd192's, one is modded and the other not.
Anyway, I'd like to cut down on the noise a bit.

Thanks!
Trevor

Trevort wrote:What did you switch it out to?
I have 2 Hd192's, one is modded and the other not.
Anyway, I'd like to cut down on the noise a bit.

I don't know what fan was installed. Check my post up higher on this page. Alive Sound did the fan upgrade on my HD192 and also and HD192 and 1296 that belonged to a friend of mine. His were so quiet afterward he sold his QuietRack.

Audioflotis wrote:the HD192 is supposed to be the motu equivalent of the digidesign HD and when i bought it as i got it out of the box i was worried. it feels so light, it didnt seem real.

The weight factor is a non-issue as far as audio performance goes. MOTU could have added some heavy steel plates to increase the heft factor (as is common in commercial products, especially those made of plastic), but doing so would only have increased manufacturing cost and shipping expense.

I rack mount my gear. The rack is plenty heavy for me.

Now, as for the fan issue, that's another story, with a simple fix explained by Jamie, unless you record at 192, which I never quite understand, but that's another another story altogether

jamiefennessy wrote:ditto on the fan-noise thing....i wired in a switch to turn it off when tracking acoustic stuff in the control room.......i have a feeling that the unit was over-engineered for use in a hot machine-room playing/recording two 10.1 mixes at 192kHz......i can leave the fan off for hours if i'm only tracking at 44.1 or 88.2...with 192 and higher i/o turned on, the heat produced is a lot more noticeable.